Our balanced tradition

While it’s nice to see Advent written about in a secular outlet like the Cincinnati Enquirer, it seems to fall under the same editorial policy that covers Church teaching on abortion: It can only be mentioned if “balanced” by other topics with tenuous or forced connections to the subject matter. In the case of abortion, that means the death penalty, just war, and “torture”; in the case of Advent, that means Hanukkah, the Islamic new year, some sort of Hindu festival, and — wait for it — Kwanzaa:

The Christian season of Advent, just beginning, has travelers following a star. The Jewish tradition of Hanukkah is a remembrance of the miracle of light marked by candles. The Islamic new year began earlier this month with the first sighting of a crescent moon after a period of lunar darkness. A festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists just passed. The African-American tradition of Kwanzaa, coming at the end of the year, uses as a central tradition the lighting of seven candles.

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The Enquirer says,“All these traditions and nonreligious ones, too, have a common theme: As the days get shorter, the sun’s diminishing light is replaced by the light we bring to illuminate our homes, our communities and the places we gather.”

Is that really the theme of Advent? And if so, do all of the aforementioned traditions really share such a common theme?

The editors write that all of these “traditions” share the following theme: “As the days get shorter, the sun’s diminishing light is replaced by the light we bring to illuminate our homes, our communities and the places we gather.”

Kwanza is light alright. The man who *invented* it in far away exotic 1967 served hard time for harming women by burning them. I suppose there’s some light in that, and it is time that some light should be cast on it!!!!!!!!